Yang Xi heard someone call his name and looked over. A woman's smiling face came into view, and she seemed somewhat familiar.
He narrowed his eyes, thinking of the woman who had inexplicably smiled at him that day.
It's her.
Zhou Chenyu felt him staring intently at her, his sharp and piercing gaze making it seem as if he were interrogating a criminal.
Although that kind of gaze is uncomfortable, being stared at like that by a handsome guy is quite embarrassing.
Zhou Chenyu gave a worthless, silly grin, clapped his hands lightly in front of his chest, and said to him, "Good job catching the prisoner! Well done!!!"
Yang Xi frowned, offering no response. He coldly withdrew his gaze and said to the people beside him, "Let's go!"
"Handsome guy, goodbye."
Zhou Chenyu watched him leave, waved lightly, turned around, and bumped into Zhou Baoyu staring at him with a face full of resentment.
She was startled, and her voice boomed, "You brat, why are you staring at me like that? You're scaring me half to death!"
Zhou Baoyu muttered resentfully, "Yesterday we were talking about sealing our hearts and locking away our love, but after seeing him, it all went back to the same old story."
Zhou Chenyu withdrew her hand with a smug smile, "I've sealed my heart and locked away my love. I've locked it but not completely. The key is on the door frame, within 188's reach."
"Hmph! I don't have a sister like you!" Zhou Baoyu was furious. He wiped away the dried tears on his face, turned around, and strode away.
Zhou Chenyu then noticed the abrasion on his palm, realizing her mistake, and hurriedly chased after him with concern, "Are you really hurt? I thought you were just faking it. I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to. Is your hand alright? Let me see."
Zhou Baoyu threw a tantrum and tightly hid his hands.
“You may be angry with me, but you can’t let yourself go hungry.” Zhou Chenyu pulled him to the wonton shop. “Grandpa, we’d like two servings of wontons.”
"Alright, please sit down for a moment, it'll be ready soon!"
Zhou Chenyu and Baoyu sat down facing each other. Baoyu still had a pout and refused to speak to her.
Zhou Chenyu didn't insist, leaving him aside and propping her chin up to look towards the pot.
The old man took out two large bowls, added oil, salt, and homemade pickled vegetables to them, grabbed a few green vegetables, threw them into the pot to blanch them, took them out, put in more than twenty wontons, and then added a spoonful of fresh meat filling to blanch them all together.
After the wontons are placed in the bowl, a large spoonful of the specially prepared bone broth is poured over them, and the fresh aroma of scallions immediately fills the air.
The old man brought over two bowls of hot wontons. "Girl, be careful, it's hot!"
"Thanks."
Zhou Chenyu pushed one of the bowls in front of Baoyu and offered him a spoon with both hands. "I apologize to you. I'm sorry. Please forgive me. I swear I will never do this again."
Zhou Baoyu raised his chin, looked away, and his forehead clearly showed that he was still angry.
Seeing him swallow, Zhou Chenyu raised an eyebrow and smiled, then moved both bowls of wontons in front of her. "Fine, if you don't want to eat, I'll eat. Anyway, I have a big appetite, so I'm not worried about not being able to finish them."
She picked up a spoon and began to eat the wontons. The wonton wrappers were thin and translucent, the meat filling was thick and fluffy, and they melted in her mouth. Finally, she sipped a mouthful of the special rich soup. "So delicious."
Hearing the slurping sound of soup being drunk, Zhou Baoyu secretly peeked out with his eyes, his mouth watering.
Zhou Chenyu heard his stomach rumbling with hunger and laughed at him, "Hey, I'm almost finished eating, aren't you going to eat?"
He turned his head away in a huff, "I won't eat."
Zhou Chenyu refused to believe it. "Oh dear, I've never seen such a stupid person before. Not only are they injured, but they're also starving. How pitiful! Either way, they're suffering. If you won't eat, then I will."
She was about to put the used spoon into his bowl when Zhou Baoyu suddenly realized she made a good point. He angrily snatched the bowl away and protectively placed it in front of him, saying, "This is mine, you can't touch it even if you're my sister!"
Zhou Chenyu smiled without saying a word.
After the two finished eating the wontons, it was already past 2 p.m.
Zhou Chenyu and Baoyu immediately set off to buy the things Li Xiuju had instructed them to buy. They bought a pound of glutinous rice, half a pound of peanuts, and some sugar. Sugar was an expensive item in this era of scarcity, and a little bit cost ten coins.
We don't usually eat these, but we make some sweet peanut-filled mugwort cakes to offer as a sacrifice to our ancestors during the Qingming Festival.
After paying the bill and leaving the shop, Baoyu stopped in front of a stall selling osmanthus cakes. The cakes had two layers of glutinous white filling with yellow osmanthus filling in the middle, and they looked very appealing.
I've had Zhou Chenyu before; it tastes sticky and sweet. I wonder if this one tastes the same.
"Sister, how about we buy two pieces? Mother likes these sweet pastries." Zhou Baoyu was worried about his mother at home, and Zhou Chenyu immediately took out some money. "We've eaten wontons, so we should at least buy some good food for the old lady. Shopkeeper, give us two pieces."
After buying all the items, Zhou Chenyu and Baoyu pushed the cart home. Unexpectedly, on their way back, they encountered Chen Tongsheng, who was selling fruit.
It turned out that he had planted an orchard in the mountains, and now it was the harvest season for oranges, so he picked them and took them to the market to sell. He sold them from early morning until afternoon, and came back when there were still some left.
The three of them returned together, chatting and laughing all the way. When they were almost at the village entrance, Chen Tongsheng even slipped a few oranges to them.
Unable to refuse their hospitality, Zhou Chenyu and Baoyu thanked them and hurried home.
At this moment, Li Xiuju was sitting in the yard, using the back of a knife to tap off the pointed ends of the snails so that they would absorb more flavor when stir-fried. "I was just saying that you've been gone for so long, why haven't you come back yet? As soon as I finished speaking, you came back."
Zhou Baoyu held up a osmanthus cake wrapped in lotus leaves and handed it to Li Xiuju, saying, "Mother, look what we bought for you."
"Didn't Mother say not to buy me anything?" Li Xiuju lowered her eyes.
Zhou Chenyu knew she was reluctant to spend the money, so she quickly handed her the money bag and said with a smile, "Today's bamboo shoots sold more than doubled the profit compared to last time. After we bought flour and sugar, we still have more than a hundred coins left. We can afford to buy osmanthus cakes."
Li Xiuju was surprised, "One hundred coins? Really...really?"
Baoyu took the knife. "Mother, how could it be fake?"
"That's great!" Li Xiuju never imagined that she would earn over a hundred coins in just a few days.
She smiled as she put away the purse and opened the lotus leaf wrapping the osmanthus cake. "There's so much, I can't finish it all by myself. You should try some too."
Zhou Baoyu shook his head and busied himself cracking open the remaining snails. "Mother, I don't want to eat them, you eat them."
Undeterred, Li Xiuju walked up to Zhou Chenyu and said, "Here, have a taste."
“Baoyu and I have already had wontons on the street, this is nothing. You can have it yourself.” Zhou Chenyu took two large snails and compared their sizes. “Besides, I need to save room for snails tonight. I’ve been craving them for a long time.”
"Okay, after Mom finishes this, we'll stir-fry this whole pot of snails tonight." Li Xiuju took a bite of the osmanthus cake, and her mouth felt as sweet as if she had eaten honey.
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